Peace can spread and grow from “small seeds” like including someone who is left out of an activity, showing concern for someone who is struggling, picking up some litter and praying for God’s help, Pope Francis told Italian schoolchildren.
“At a time still marked by war, I ask you to be artisans of peace,” the pope told some 6,000 Italian schoolchildren involved in the National Network of Schools of Peace, a civic education program designed to teach the children to care for themselves, their friends, their communities, the world and the environment.
During the gathering on 19th April in the Vatican audience hall, Pope Francis led the children in a moment of silent prayer for their peers in Ukraine and in Gaza. “In a society still prisoner of a throwaway culture,” he told them.
“I ask you to be protagonists of inclusion; in a world torn by global crises, I ask you to be builders of the future, so that our common home may become a place of fraternity.”
Picture: Pope Francis waves to about 6,000 Italian schoolchildren involved in the National Network of Schools of Peace, a civic education programme, in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican, 19th April 2024. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)